Lawyer’s second book chronicles missing nuclear bombs

PORTSMOUTH — After the collapse of the former Soviet Union, Portsmouth attorney Bob Shaines was living in the post-communist country as a U. S. Defense Department consultant when he learned that 50 Russian, 10-kiloton, suitcase-sized, plutonium bombs were unaccounted for.

PORTSMOUTH — After the collapse of the former Soviet Union, Portsmouth attorney Bob Shaines was living in the post-communist country as a U. S. Defense Department consultant when he learned that 50 Russian, 10-kiloton, suitcase-sized, plutonium bombs were unaccounted for.

“The bombs, he said, “were small enough to be transported by diplomatic pouch and designed to give the Soviets a potential retaliatory weapon in the event of a nuclear war by placing them at various sites in Western cities.”

The missing bombs, and efforts by a global task force to find them, lays the foundation for Shaines’ new book, “Secrets In A Time of Peace.” He calls the book a memoir, but says it’s fiction, though based on actual events, real people, and personal experiences from his time living in Russia between 1991 and 1996.

Shaines went to Russia as a contractor for the Defense Nuclear Agency, a division of the U. S. Department of Defense, as part of a global effort to ease political tensions by converting Soviet weapons-making operations into other consumer-driven businesses. A $7.3 billion budget was allocated under the so-called Cooperative Threat Reduction Treaty which, Shaines wrote in his preface, was never ratified by the U. S. Senate.

Much of that $7.3 billion, Shaines wrote, “was wasted by a few political cronies of (former vice president Al) Gore, several other congressional leaders and a few large international firms.”

Shaines said that while he was working in Russia he met many of the key players, “some ethical, many corrupt.” His book weaves those tales with the story about the search for the missing bombs, as well as efforts to keep the bombs from terrorists and “trying not to alarm the world’s population of the impending horror should they fail in their mission.”

“It was essential that the bombs be found and secured from terrorist control without causing a worldwide panic,” Shaines’ wrote. “Racing against time, the team searched for the bombs amidst the chaos of post-Soviet Russia and a destabilized Eastern Europe.”

Shaines’ book, his second, is self-published and the story remains relevant, he wrote, for its “chilling portrait that relates to the current geopolitics of the war on terror, the events in the Middle East and Iran’s quest for a nuclear weapon.”

“It’s timely lessons reflect the current U. S. policy of containment to prevent such weapons from falling into terrorist hands or in the control of rogue governments.”

Shaines’ first book, “Command Influence: A Story of Korea and the Politics of Injustice,” recounts the trial of a young American solider who, during the Korean war, was charged with murder. It’s written from the perspective of a young assistant defense lawyer, who was Shaines.

“The total injustice of what happened there has always bothered me all my legal career,” he said shortly after publication of that book. “It’s weighed heavy on my mind. I just wanted to bring it to life.”

Shaines lives in Rye with his wife, Denise, their two dogs and nine horses. Both of his books are available through Amazon.com.